June 18, 2008

Great video on Ants

I just saw this great video about ants from a TED talk:

Her focus is on exactly what fascinates me about ants. She talks about how they coordinate a complex organization using very simple tools, and even more importantly - simple brains. No ant understands the organization, or what needs to occur in order to succeed, and yet the coordinate and "make decisions" about resource allocation, and other things.

I think it can be compared to the cells in a body - each individual cell has very, very limited inputs and outputs, and yet they can work together to create movement, sensory perception, and even consciousness, and even more importantly, can link those complex systems together. Truly amazing.